


Every Night's A Party

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Geeks, Gen, I know I'm as shocked as you are, M/M, Science Fiction, mostly canon compliant anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 14:06:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7621339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A nightclub,” Len says, widening his eyes. “Sara, can you believe that? A nightclub. Here, of all places. I’m shocked.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Response to tumblr prompt: A ColdWave story where the fact that Len is a secret Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fan is essential to a mission. Perhaps the team is trapped in a futuristic death-maze created by an individual obsessed with 20th/21st century fandoms like Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Lord of the Rings, etc - and only Len, who has an extremely detailed knowledge of said fandoms, can get them through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Night's A Party

**Author's Note:**

> Very possibly in the same universe as my Independence Day fic or at least a very closely adjacent multiverse.

Ironically enough, 2099 felt like the perfect balance between the decadent chaos of 2046 and the straight-laced futuristic authoritarian vibe of 2147. 

“Happy turn of the century,” Len muttered to Mick, who rolled his eyes. Clearing his throat, Len raised his voice. “And where, exactly, are we going now?”

“A nightclub, Mr. Snart,” Rip says shortly. “My contact will meet us there and provide us with the information that we require.”

“A _nightclub_ ,” Len says, widening his eyes. “Sara, can you believe that? A _nightclub_. Here, of all places. I’m shocked.”

Sara snickers mercilessly. 

Rip glares, but cannot deny that the street they are walking along is stuffed on both sides with nightclubs. The Las Vegas strip in all its years put together has less nightclubs than Hub City, 2099. When glaring proves ineffective, he sniffs haughtily and turns to studying the nightclubs around him as if he can figure out which one is the right one.

Len waves a jaunty hello to one of the prostitutes, who blows him a kiss in return.

“Sorry, no beads,” he calls up to her. 

She giggles and puts up a single finger in the universal sign for “give me a second.” Then she ducks down and digs around for less than a minute before tossing him a handful of cheap beaded necklaces. 

2099 is the year of the all-day, all-night Mardi Gras, apparently. 

Len – having been to Mardi Gras and knowing precisely how to react to such things – turns and slings the beads over Mick’s neck. Mick obligingly removes his shirt. The prostitute (and several of her interested friends) whistle and applaud; they don’t seem disappointed by the substitution.

“There it is!” Rip exclaims. “The Kingfisher’s Lounge.”

“Having retro night, I see,” Sara says. “We should fit right in.” 

“Regardless, that is the correct location to meet – Mr. Rory, is there a reason you don’t have your shirt on?”

“No reason at all,” Mick replies, pulling it back on. “Chronometric repositioning, you know; items just shift position when changes ripple through the timeline.”

“Yeah, Rip,” Sara chimes in. “You told us about it yourself, remember?”

Rip eyes Mick suspiciously, but clearly can’t fault his logic. The fact that everyone else is snickering, though, is clearly giving him some indication that something’s not quite right. “I should have brought Mr. Palmer and Mr. Jackson instead,” he mutters and goes to knock on the door.

It slides open to reveal a woman wearing what appeared to be tin foil and duct tape and a futuristic gunbelt, and little else. “What’s your name?” she immediately demands.

“Ah, my name is Rip Hunter –”

“Why’re you here?”

“I’m due to meet a friend of mine, who is – ”

“What’s the weight of an unladen swallow?”

“I _beg_ your pardon?” Rip exclaims.

Len, swallowing a laugh, pats him on the shoulder and turns to look at her. “African or European?” he drawls.

The woman beams. “Correct! Welcome in.”

“Much obliged,” Len says. “And the second one is ‘what is your quest’, not ‘why’re you here.’”

“Huh,” the woman says. “That’s probably right. But look on the bright side – you got the answer right, so I don’t have to shoot you!”

They make it inside and Rip immediately veers off to try to find his contact in this era, a disaffected Time Master who’s supposedly willing to lend them some aid. Len’s frowning a bit, thinking about the exchange at the door, where the woman’s last sentence had by all appearances been dead serious. From their expressions Sara and Mick are thinking about it too, and also looking around the room to see how many people are wearing guns. 

That would be all of them. 

Len, Mick, and Sara all exchange glances, confirming that none of them are liking the conclusions they’re reaching.

“Why don’t you boys find us a table and I’ll get us drinks,” Sara suggests, eyes already fixed on the bar and the bartender. Len knows her well enough by now to know she’ll return with both alcohol and information, so he and Mick go and intimidate themselves a nice table, Mick looming over some poor scamp and his college-age buddies while Len asks in his nicest voice if they don’t mind sparing the table.

The way they scamper away in terror is another interesting data point, and Len and Mick exchange another set of glances. 

“I’ve seen less skittish people in the middle of a prison riot,” Mick rumbles, tapping his fingers against the wooden table in a clear sign of discomfort.

“I’m getting a very kill-or-be-killed vibe from this whole place,” Len agrees. “That gun the woman at the door was carrying may’ve been the only thing about her outfit that wasn’t fake.”

“Good thing you knew the answer to her question,” Mick says. 

Sara returns after a few minutes with a tray of drinks and a fixed smile on her face. “So, you’ll love this –” she starts. 

“They’ve legalized murder, or at least the consequences of it are so minimal as to not stop anyone from doing it at the barest provocation. Something like that?” Len asks.

Sara’s smile twists a little. “Close enough,” she says. “Might makes right, your ability to kill trumps other people’s right to live, shit like that, plus the fact that it’s the turn of the century and we’re in the most lawless town in North America. Even the heroic vigilantes are too scared to come here.”

“Wouldn’t mind seeing the Flash give it a shot,” Mick opines.

“He’s too nice,” Len says, shaking his head. “He’d just get depressed, and that’s like seeing a depressed rabbit – you feel awful just thinking about it, but there ain’t nothing to be done for him.”

“I feel like all of your metaphors come from a set of really weird life experiences,” Sara says thoughtfully. “But also that I need to get you super drunk before you start spilling them.”

Mick snorts and takes his beer from her tray. “Len has only two modes: sober as a judge and drunk as a sorority girl halfway through her first spring break. Takes a while to see the latter, but it’s worth it.”

Len scowls at Mick. “Don’t even think about it.” It’s too late – Sara looks intrigued.

“Hey, lady and gents,” a waitress says, sliding by their table on what appear to be roller skates. “You up for the trivia competition? Winner gets fealty from the rest of the bar.”

“Fealty?” Len asks, fascinated. “As in, you get to ask them to do whatever you want?”

The waitress nods. “For 24 hours,” she confirms.

Len exchanges a look with Sara and Mick. If they want to find their target, having an entire bar full of people out looking may be the only logical way to do it.

Also, Len _loves_ trivia. He can see Mick’s resigned expression now, but he ignores it.

“What’s the theme?” he asks, just in case it’s ‘Sporting Events From the 2070s’ or something impossible like that.

She pops a burst of bubble gum. “20th Century Science Fiction,” she says.

Len’s eyes go wide.

Mick groans. 

\---------------------------

Rip finds them an hour later, face mulish and angry because his contact had been notably less immediately helpful than he’d thought, promising to go and get the information rather than having it with them already, thus costing them at least another half-hour in this time period – thus raising the possibility that the remaining Time Masters would track them down and send their assassins after them.

He found Len standing on a table, holding a broom handle and shouting, “You shall not pass!” at a scowling man who was a head taller than Mick and even broader as the crowd around him cheered.

“What in heaven’s name is going on here?” he exclaims when he sees Sara. 

“It’s the penultimate round and it’s a quote-off,” Sara says, not taking her eyes off the action. “Each quote has to be thematically tied into the previous quote but also gets points for how recognizable it is, as judged by audience reaction. Snart’s killing it – he’s managed to fit in a Doctor Who reference, a Sherlock Holmes reference, and now Lord of the Rings. The issue is that half the crowd are pop culture science fiction geeks, the bigger mainstream stuff, while the other half are true-blue classics snobs who think if it’s not on the list of greatest movies or books ever made it’s not worth squat.”

Len is carefully watching the other contestants as they go around the ring. He gets “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” as a prompt and, eyes narrowed, he crosses his arms and recites, “To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!”

Rapturous applause. 

“ _Nice_ ,” Sara says approvingly. “Moby Dick _and_ Star Trek II, excellent choice.”

“Are you seriously playing games?” Rip says, irritated beyond all belief by the priorities of the team he’d collected. He catches a glimpse of his contact by the door and turns to call out to them to let them know he’d moved away from their agreed upon meeting place, only to pale when he sees the Hunters flanking them. It’s a trap. Of course it’s a trap; he should have realized.

“We need to go,” he hisses. “ _Now._ ”

“Not till the trivia’s done,” Mick says, staring intently at the game and clutching a number of betting receipts in his fist.

“We’re about to be _ambushed_ ,” Rip hisses. “By Hunters – you recall them from your time in their company, I trust? If we don’t want this entire bar to be massacred as a direct result of our presence here, I suggest you _forget_ the trivia and that we start making our way out of here.”

“And now, the final round,” the announcer says grandly. “You can wager as many or as few points as you like from all the other rounds put together and you have to answer this question: _What_...is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?”

Concerned murmurs from throughout the crowd, but Len just laughs. “I’ll wager all of it,” he calls out, grabbing the offered tablet to scribble in his answer.

The other remaining contestants scowl and look concerned. Len’s been playing mind games with them since round one, so they don’t know if he’s bluffing or if he actually knows the answer, and he’s compiled enough points in the prior rounds that they need to risk everything or fall behind.

Two of them opt to put in virtually their entire pots as well, withholding a small amount even though it would only put them in second place; the leaders, shaking their heads, risk only a portion of their pots. If Len gets the answer right, he’s won; if he loses, he’d be the lowest pot in the group and liable to answer to _everyone_ in the game above, and that position is basically untenable from what Sara’s been able to learn. They'll almost certainly have to shoot their way out, and Sara's not entirely sure she wants to bet against a crowd this heavily armed. 

“He knows this, right?” she hisses to Mick, ignoring Rip’s increasingly desperate hand-waving and loud whispers.

“He still can’t look at a towel on Thursdays without smirking,” Mick replies with a snort.

“…what the hell does that mean?”

Mick gives her a pitying look. “Okay, you don’t even have the excuse of it being a hundred years old,” he says disparagingly. “I’ll get Gideon to print you a copy to read when we get back to the Waverider.”

“At this point,” Rip says through gritted teeth. “If we don’t leave now, we will not _make it_ back to the Waverider.”

“The answer is…” the announcer pauses. “Forty-two! Mr. Snart is our winner, ladies and gentlemen! Mr. Snart, what is your first instruction?”

Len looks down at Sara and Mick and Rip, then glances at the doorway where the Hunters have spotted them and are making a beeline over. He grins and points at them.

“Get ‘em,” he orders.

\------------------------------------

“I’m going to have a hard time letting go,” Len sighs, ordering the various men and women he conscribed to be pack-mules to stow his ill-gotten gains in the back of the Waverider – given how all cargo holds look the same, even in the future, he calculates there won’t be any issues with them realizing that it’s futuristic tech. Given the Halloween-like atmosphere that seems to suffuse 2099, they probably think it’s window dressing or done up like a movie. “It’s so _nice_ to have an army. I see why people do it.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Mick warns. “You don’t get to bring them home – and don’t you _dare_ think about staying, not after that crap you pulled about me and 2046.”

“I know, I know,” Len says. “I wouldn’t leave you or Lisa behind and you know it –” he manfully rushes forward to the next portion before Mick can say anything about the Oculus. “– but you must admit, I was _born_ to visit an era where the biggest science fiction nerd is king.”

“I still can’t believe that worked,” Rip says gloomily.

“I still can’t believe you managed to organize sixteen different and successful heists to use your army for inside your 24 hour window based entirely on intel you picked up in the hour or two before we got to the nightclub,” Sara says. “I was skeptical at first, but I’ve got to admit it: I’m impressed.”

“Oh, Maria helped,” Len says breezily.

“Who’s Maria?” Rip says, sounding slightly alarmed.

“The prostitute from the Red Candlestick – the one who so very kindly gave Mick and I some beads – she has quite the underworld connections, actually, and she’s a stellar fence –”

“How did you manage to find – no,” Rip stops himself. “I’m not asking. I don’t want to know.”

Len hops down from the chest he’s been standing on to guide the people in. “Hey, Mick,” he says. “I got you something from the museum. Team Mule 2 should’ve put it in the back already.”

“What is it?” Mick says suspiciously, following Len only to come to a halt when the second cargo doors slide open. “…you got me the future’s answer to the Iron Throne?” 

“ _And_ a chalice,” Len says proudly, pulling the item out of his pocket and offering it to his partner. 

Mick starts grinning madly. “This’ll go great with the fireworks,” he says gleefully.

“For the last time, Mr. Rory,” Rip says. “They’re not _fireworks_ , they’re _torpedoes_ and you are _not allowed to use them_ …”


End file.
